Is free speech a spook?

Is free speech a spook?
Seems like to speak freely, you have to already have some sort of power, or your speech is so ineffectual it doesn't matter.

nobody has the right to free speech because rights are meaningless. All that matters is that you have the ability to speak. It would be ridiculous to say that the average person has just as much free speech as someone like Rupert Murdoch who ones a billion different newspapers and news channels.

t. idpol liberal that wants people jailed for saying anything they deem offensive.

Not at all.
I just don't think it belongs on an altar.

Autist.

It's an idea that only works within a liberal framework. For that reason, it ignores factors like the power conferred by property or access to media. I wouldn't trust the technocrats to decide what's off limits and what's not, either. Their interests lie in preserving their power at all costs.

would you read that book?

I read once an excellent account of free speech (unfortunately it was made by a liberas, alas, nobody is perfect). Free speech doesn't mean you are allowed to shitpost irl about anything and hurt other people and just say yolo and walk away unharmed, it only means you should be protected FROM the State, the State cannot throw you into a secret dungeon or send a hired killer after you for criticizing the government. However, if you say something derogatory towards ethnic minorities or women or whatever, your face is fair game to leftist radicals.

There are contradictions to this account of free speech obviously (what if it is the State that sends antifas to beat you up?) but as a normative, ethical imperative it is good enough (in the context of a liberal society at least, under DoTP a different set of rules could apply)

I did.
Seems like it is, because it's a fixed idea that compels people to do things for its sake instead of their own.

What's that?

Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the form of social organization that comes after revolution.

It might be a spook. When something is constantly hyped to be super important with little opposition it tends to become a spook.
Like free speech, terrorism, lgbt rights etc.
It's often done to deflect from other issues, or to make you feel you have power.

yes. read bordiga.

Free speech is what allows whistleblowers like Wikileaks to get as far as they do. When stuff is leaked online the state sure as hell can't get rid of it without it being unconstitutional in most cases. It's why there's so much damning info floating around the interwebz that could be round up and deleted but isn't Ending free speech means an end to whistleblowers. There were people saying the alleged WMDs in Iraq were bullshit from the start but the state sure as hell didn't care and so off we went to a war and found no WMDs. The Syria gas attacks were proven not to be Assad thanks to non-state whistleblowers.

absolutely a spook imo

it's usually just a buzzword for reactionaries when they feel like something they don't like/think is stupid is receiving widespread public support. like, sure you can bitch about milo or something not getting to speak at a university event but is his right to speak his opinion really being suppressed? just a small example, but the guy can say whatever he wants to, it's just that x university decided not to host him.

where it is actually in jeopardy are in instances like wikileaks/other whistleblowers getting actively shut down before they can get their information out, i.e. things the state (the thing which actually regulates public free speech) wants suppressed, not someones retarded opinion on a non-issue like pronouns

When you have to escape the country to exercise free speech, does that really count though? I mean, she state is still coming after your ass.

*the state
Christ, I can't spell tonight for some reason.

I consider myself in favor of free speech, but the idea we HAVE free speech in contemporary western society is false, even in the United States. Moderators are proof of this

It's funny that some people will bitch that milo's not being allowed to say "nigger" while getting fucked in the ass on stage but not the climate scientists who've been banned from speaking to the media or even tweeting about Trump's environmental policy.

Because free speech is being trampled upon.

its because muh frozen fruit idiots are mostly apolitical dinguses who think not liking sjw's is some kind of radical act

its only above gamergate in stupidity

Instead of promising not to censor, states should promise to be the only one that could.

It's always been that way

the problem is 9 times out of 10, the state will side with the fascists and against the leftist radicals. It's not a moral question- there's no absolute right of free speech- but a tactical question. The liberal state cannot be counted upon as an arbiter of what's right and what's wrong, it will always have its own interests in mind.

The spectacle of right wing shock jocks relies on left wing opposition, on becoming a 'symbol' of the debate about free speech or whatever. I don't know if that business model is really sustainable by itself, you can only 'trigger' so many 'sjws' before people get bored. The real threat is the people closest to the levers of power, they might be savvy enough to express themselves in a politically correct fashion and gain full acceptance into liberal society, but they also might be every bit as fascist as Richard Spencer. Military industrial complex shills can learn tumblr buzzwords too. Fascism proclaims the reality of domination, which is hidden elsewhere. You can't convince capitalism to stop becoming what it always was.

It's a spook but calling things spooks is meaningless because disregarding spooks because they are spooks is a spook.

same goes for colleges and other liberal institutions, notice how even mild leftist criticism of israel is ruthlessly repressed and nobody really cares

Oh, you mean like, you can be a communist in the US now, cause nobody gives a fuck, but you couldn't be one in the 50s cause then you red and you go electric chair?

Hmmm… That would actually make sense….

Which is why the state has to go.

Make that ten times out of ten.

Liberal ideology says it's a natural right that people can basically find on self-reflection, and that's why the state should not take away that right. In that way, it's a spook. And in practice the state only really tends to protect free speech when it's in the interest of the ruling class.

However, the idea behind it is good. In history, people with power have long been trying to control the spread of ideas, and free speech is a simple moral principle that reminds people that a tradition of limiting the abilities of people they don't like to communicate their ideas could turn around and be used against them later. In that way it's like a call for solidarity for people to defend each other's abilities to speak freely, even if they don't like each other. If you really think that by protecting someone else's speech your speech will be protected in return, and you want your speech to be protected, then the appeal to free speech here is not at all spooky. It would be like a rallying cry for indicating common interest.

They are defined in opposition to one another. The SJWs exist to fight the evil racists and mysogynists, and the so-called traditionalists exist to fight the subhumans and the degenerates. Both ultimately serve the same function: obscurantism. Each would cease to exist without the other.

I hate that this word has become a complete buzzword for the similar reasons you mentioned. Universities(in America at least) not only have a problem with people voicing things that they don't like, people have been known to get into "trouble" or even pushed away for holding those opinions themselves. Universities have become so politically/emotionally charged, hegemonic and intolerant of opposing views that they miss some of the importance for why they exist in the first place.

There will always be people who focus on one instance of a issue while ignoring another(especially with IDpol), but that does not negate the people who don't exist.

Universities exist because they are for-profit entities that sell you a piece of paper with their name on it. They are acting in their own interest.

No, if anything being against it is the spooky thing. Without free speech likely none of us would've become class conscious, or know half the shit we know, yet to argue against the idea of free speech because some assholes might say something annoying or "offensive" IS being spooked, since you directly acting against your self-interests because of some vague idea of acceptability.


Just a horribly inconsistent viewpoint without any sort of philosophical foundation. Saying it's bad for one group of people to silence you for your opinions but for another it's perfectably acceptable is just liberal nonsense. Free speech is a legal restriction on the state, but it's also an idea, that everyone should be allowed to say whatever they want to say without answering it with violence.

If someone says something derogatory about minorities or women or whatever, then the minorities of women should either ignore him, get over it, or debate him. Attacking someone because they hurt your feelings is absurd reactionary nonsense.

Another reason why they should be free(or free again in some places).

Guaranteed free speech is a good idea, if only because I don't trust you to determine what is right for me to say.

Not going to lie, that sounds kind of spooky.
There times where I would have no problem bashing someones head if they said shit to me, i.e. threats, saying they're going to kill my family, telling they plan to shoot me etc.

All thinking concerning free speech has always included exceptions for fighting words, and public order menaces (shouting fire in a crowded theater being the go-to example). Thinking concerning "natural rights" isn't quite as spooked as it sounds.

Not engaging in short-sighted emotional outbursts isn't being spooked.

Free speech is a liberal concept you fucking idiot.

Liberal as in Enlightenment values, not liberal as in idpol.